Wanted: FullSupport Priestess
by RedKinoko
Summary: So what do you do if a high priestess from the game appears in front of you in real life? One failed experiment leads Rayn to this predicament and now he's forced to work with an RO priestess to unravel the mysterious nature of her fate.
1. Prologue

**WANTED: FULL-SUPPORT PRIESTESS **

Summary: The life of a typical college student turns upside down when a high priestess from the game accidentally ends up barging into his world because of an experiment gone wrong. An interdimensional story of friendship and realizations.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

**  
Prologue: Ghost**

_High Priestess Celestine Edencourt,_

_This is to inform you with utmost regret that your request for transfer to the Geffenite Frontier has been denied by the Sanctuarian Council due to task prioritization. We know how eager you are to join in our thrusts against the forces of Glastheim but we also considered the fact that you are invaluable to your current post. After much deliberation, we find it best that you stay as Head Matron of the Dovin Orphanage._

_Best Regards,  
Cardinal Lorin Rimbaugh  
High Seer, Sanctuarian Council  
_  
The morning rays coming through the small window sill of the wooden cabin spotlighted the dancing dust motes floating between the parchment and its recipient - a young lady in her late teens with flaxen locks that glinted with the sunlight and flushed skin highlighted by ornate crimson wardrobe that flowed down a very voluptuous shape of a goddess.

The high priestess leaned back on the wooden chair behind the fine-grained desk, gripping the parchment ever harder. The third time, she thought. How could they keep Sactuary's youngest ever High Priestess in a Payonese Orphanage just because her Grand General Crusader of a father forbids her to see any action more dangerous than changing diapers?

Celeste took a deep breath. A passing thought that need not be highlighted, the priestess said to herself as she watched a child running towards her office from the front window. Celeste smiled, gently folded the letter and slid it under her desk along with the other denied requests.

Another dog day morning at the orphanage.

"Matron Celeste! It's Jasn - the caves - we need your help!" shrieked a kid who looked more like a swamp abomination with his mud-crusted face from all the day's playing.

By the way the young boy said it, Celeste knew something was up. There was tensile truth in the boy's anxiousness. Maybe she was needed there after all. She took no time in darting out of her office as she was led by the boy into the darkness of the forest.

----------------

Her deepest fear was confirmed when the boy stopped smacked dab in front of the Payonese cave and pointed towards it with a shaky finger. "We were playing in the caves when... when..."

The priestess needed not even hear it. The Payonese cave was unholy as it was structurally unstable. Perhaps its notoriety was the cause of many a child or childs at heart getting lured into the caves and meeting bad circumstances.

"Stay here," Celeste said as she took out a baroque heirloom arcwand from her side belt.

--------------------

A few meters into the cave and she already heard the lost boy's sobbing. She waved her wand across her face once and watched its opal centerpiece glow with white light. Like a torch, she used it to guide her way into the narrowing caverns.

She found the boy in no time, sobbing helplessly slumped beside a stalagmite.

"There you are, Jasn," Celeste said in a very calm, comforting undertone while reaching down with her left hand," your friends were looking for you at the lunch table."

The boy sniffled and looked up to the sunny expression of Celeste as highlighted by the glow of her staff. He grew a weak smile, nodding once, stifled by remnants of sobbing.

Then, a cold gust of air from behind the priestess gave her a split second chance to recognize thread. With one fell sweep of her arc wand, she demonstrated to whoever or whatever was behind her why she was given the title of High Priestess five years earlier than all her peers.

The ghoul never saw it coming. The radiant light of holiness pierced through the decaying flesh and turned bone to ash on contact. Jasn began to cry again as Celeste picked him up with one hand.

"We need to get out of this place."

The High Priestess turned to the exit but found it crawling with more zombies that exhumed themselves from the soft soil of the cavern. There was something about that scene that screamed at Celeste that it was not her day.

Finding herself out of options, she gave Jasn a blue gemstone and put him down to the ground. Celeste clasped her hands with her wand and uttered a gentle prayer. White light filled the cavern for a brief second, after which, she found herself alone among the ghouls.

"Now that I don't have anybody to worry about, shall we dance?" she said with an entertained expression.

Then happened something even she couldn't explain with all the knowledge of the Pronteran ministry. The arcwand slipped from the fingers that were gripping it and fell to the soft soil. Shocked and in disbelief, the High Priestess looked at her hands - translucent. She tried picking up the wand again but in vain. It was like she was turning into a ghost.

And perhaps, in the strangest kind of way, she already was.

Five seconds later, High Priestess Celestine Edencourt, Head Matron of the Payonese Orphanage, vanished from the world of Midgard.


	2. Disconnected

**Chapter 1: Disconnected**

The familiar, melodious ring of the phone sounded a lot like the coming of Ragnarok for the wakened Christian Mendez. Cold wind coming in from the window made it twice as hard to get up and pickup the handset from his bed at three in the morning. He was wishing the call away from his half-sleep.

But the ringing wouldn't go away.

"Who the hell calls up people at three in the morning?" he grumbled to himself in a familiar grump he used to confront almost everything else. He gave his pillow a frustrated squeeze and finally rose from the bed.

Morning clothes marked the man's well-build frame as he bent down put on his box-type glasses and combed his ebon shoulder-length hair with his fingers once.

"This better be good," he said.

Christian picked up the phone on top of his dresser. After a few seconds, let it slip from his hands, making it swing towards the closet cabinet and hit its side with a bang.

In his face was a reaction of disbelief, as though something had happened that shouldn't have, or something that should have happened didn't.

He knew which one it was.

Christian listlessly glided from the side of his bed to the window of his seventeenth floor condominium unit overlooking the rain-soaked university grounds - face distraught and breathing heavily.

"Lord, have mercy on us all."

------------

The Science and Technology Research Center was the pride of the University when it came to advanced academic research. From within its halls, only the best minds and the most modern equipment coming from university, government, and philanthropic funding – constantly producing research thrusts that could rival those of much more modern facilities. Agriculture, civil works, bacteriology, and alternative medicine - the studies were as varied as the people who worked there.

Most of the research findings found themselves posted in various journals that were sent out to academic archives all over the world for the betterment of mankind.

Well most of it, anyway.

Of the many projects housed in that complex, there was one hardly notable project located in a nondescript room in basement of the facility labeled as "maintenance room". It belonged the very few research projects will never get published.

And that night, that project was about to hit climax.

------------------

Christian sprang the final four steps that led to the basement of the complex and landed his leathers with a solid thud. He weaved through the steamy piping and damp, cracked flooring to get through the western end of the place. He panted a bit and checked the drab plate sign of unpolished bronze that graced the sidewall of a metal door that resembled a fire exit more than a maintenance room.

Maintenance Room, it says. Heh, Christian chuckled for a second. He dipped his thumb on the last letter of the signed the same way one would when imprinting a thumb mark on some medical record. A motorized whir came from within the wall. In an instant, his finger was bathed in green light.

A pleasant elevatorish ding and an unlocking sound gave him the signal to proceed.

Inside the room was anything but a janitorial maintenance complex. It was what you would normally see in a highly sterilized scientific environment where everything is white. The computers cascaded in a descending stepped terrace setup with glass panes overlooking an observation area for a holding chamber were still on - most of them screen-savered.

Christian briskly walked towards the holding area. Halfway through the aisles of computers, a perturbed-looking young man in a lab gown with hair that looked uncombed for weeks blocked his path. The silvery folder he handed over to Christian reflected glint into his thick eyeglasses and pearly-white grin.

"The logs of the last run we did fifteen minutes ago, sir."

Christian grabbed the folder and squinted at its contents without trying to understand everything. "I came here with the knowledge that somebody in the phone told me that LAZARUS has started up, Jeeves."

The young man referred to as Jeeves almost jumped back, startled. He swallowed his saliva and replied in a half-shaking voice, "Well sir, we followed all standard procedures for this run and everything had been approved by you yesterday evening and..."

Christian closed the folder and shoved it back to Jeeves, effectively cutting the young man's attempt at a formal oral report. The irritated Christian forced his way to the observation deck where he could see the core of the whole Project as Jeeves apparently tried to stall him.

"Just tell me what happened, damn it!"

Jeeves took one deep breath and looked at Christian who looked hurriedly dressed in jeans and plain white shirt.

"She got activated for a few seconds, Sir. But at the last possible moment the Sentience Generation Code failed to interface with her neural structures. Against the standard protocol, I had to reroute the processing unit to the nearest possible source of _SeGenCo_."

"You should have notified me then," Christian replied while pushing the nosepiece of his eyeglasses and once again going through the printout logs from the folder.

Jeeves went back to his workstation a few steps away from the glass window where a much more relieved Christian was still reviewing the papers with the misty holding area as background.

"Her synaptic rate was dropping quickly, sir. I felt compelled to act outside authorization but within the limit of my jurisdiction. We want her alive but we also want her to be capable of intelligence."

Christian sighed and felt more relaxed this time. LAZARUS wasn't working as he had expected after all. And the snag of a critical program not working almost sounded like a good thing. And though he didn't know why, he felt that there was some justice in not giving life to something that wasn't made the same way men should be.

Project LAZARUS, as the name would suggest, was a project directly sponsored by the Government and the University to create the first human being completely in vitro, meaning, a living thing that would never enter or exit a human womb. The technology that went into the project had come from various sources from all over the world, some of them directly from US Government archives. The moral aspect of the LAZARUS project made the whole thing strictly confidential. That is, among a great many other secretive things.

Raising an artificial human from a basement room was a far-fetched idea that was being crushed by the pressure coming from the benefactors of the project. Christian, as tech lead of the project had already decided that the project should fail for a lot of reasons. Deep inside, he wanted LAZARUS to work out but he also wished it would never.

"Is she dead then?" Christian stared at the gleaming metallic human-containment capsule located of a tiled holding pen another story below the observation area, still swamped with white smoke. He remembered the first time he saw the damn thing coming in from Korea, it was still like a large metallic thermos as much as it was to him then.

"No, sir. It doesn't look like it," Jeeves replied with a deadliner baritone as he pressed switch for the vents of the holding area.

Christian watched eagerly as the white smoke cleared and the containment capsule's door swung open. The lucid blue liquid that used to fill its insides was all over the normally sterile floor. The visorless helmet connecting the subject to the encephalon programming devices hung lazily inside the capsule. A bit further around the metal container were footsteps from dainty feet and at the end of the trail, a circular mark on the tiles - darkened as though something had burnt it. The young man couldn't believe his eyes.

"She's gone," followed up Jeeves in a calm tone. Christian's mouth, still agape.

---------------

Behind the two was Jeeve's workstation. A makeshift wired network connection could be seen from his desk to the capsule's support system boxes below the observation deck. On it's screen, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game called Ragnarok Online was still running.

At the center of the screen was a message around a white window. It read:

**-Disconnected from Server-**


	3. Burglar

**Chapter 2: Burglar **

Rayner SantaCruz bit his No. 2 Mongol pencil's eraser and leafed through another page of his sketchbook. He checked the time from the idle wall clock hanging from the top of the cafe. It read two in the morning. Not too far away, the deep, booming sound of orcs screaming and spells being cast from a few games of Warcraft gave the almost deserted Internet cafe a strange middle-earthly feel to it.

Rayner leaned forward from his shopkeep's seat and peeped from the glass shelves that protected him often enough from the rampage of kids desperate to find open slots on Byte Zone, the internet cafe he was supposed to be running for only eight hours per shift. He swept his vision across the room and found that there was still a group of college boys playing Warcraft. Directly in front of him was his best friend, Elenore Santos who was lazily clicking away at her favourite MMORPG from one of the terminals.

It wasn't the best sideline job in the world to Rayner, but the pay was just right and the workhours tend to get overextended whenever addicts opt to stay till the wee hours of the morning. Nobody forced him to keep the shop open when they do but he somewhat liked staying there anyway. Having to live alone in an apartment as a college student isn't really as exciting as it sounds.

And besides, he thought to himself as he looked at Elenore playing at terminal eight, he always had good, sensible company with him whenever he overstays.

"You know Ellie, you should at least pay for half of your gametime."

But he already knew her boilerplate reply. She was the type who knows her cards and how to use them. And she has never failed him in that department.

"Put it in your tab, loves," she teasingly replied while twirling her kinked shoulder-length hair, as she went back to the mindless clicking of Ragnarok Online.

He never did understand what Ellie, and several thousand others like her found in Ragnarok Online. He was no gaming connoisseur but it took him no time to realize that the graphics was nothing to brag about. The game itself looked bland, repetitive to him. What it was to him was a waste of money.

But there wasn't much sense in fighting the futility of asking her to pay for the game. It was his shift anyway, and nobody's paying him for overtime. Her game might as well be the payment for his work. A funny arrangement, but he couldn't care less. Whenever he overstayed, he wasn't in for the money anyway. Rayner reclined once more in the shopkeep's seat, fixed his baseball cap, and continued sketching away.

While sketching though, it was his habit, albeit a bad one, to listen in on the mostly mindless talks of the players who could spare enough wits to jabber away and score kills at the same time. That night, the Warcraft players were actually talking about something that hit Rayner in a different way.

"Did you hear about that incident I heard in the news, dre?"  
"Which bit?"  
"The one where a cafe got robbed."

At this point, Rayner had already stopped sketching and was listening in intently. Of course, anything he needed to know had to be sifted from a wad of useless game talk.

"Dammit, I couldn't take the tower down. I need more creeps."  
"You should go play Neopets instead, Mark. You're really pathetic at this."  
"Anyway which cafe was it? The one that got jacked, I mean."  
"I don't remember. All I know is that it was done during the weehours of the morning and that the shopkeep was sent to the ICU after he got stabbed with an ice pick."  
"Oh yeah, I think I've heard of that. Some escaped criminal did it, they say. He waits till the shop gets cleared then he strikes."

Rayner swallowed hard. He stopped listening and tried to concentrate with his drawing. It was not a distant thought that he had no way of defending himself should any crime be done in his cafe. He was a nerd in every sense of the word and nerds are notoriously bad when it comes to self-defense.

He kept to his thoughts, but he unconsciously dozed off - sleeping at the right place at the right time wasn't one of his better qualities.

------------------------

Three in the morning was the time when he woke up to the feeling of being pelted with crumpled paper lodged by the Warcraft players. Early morning drizzle glazed the transparent windows facing the street.

"Hey shopkeep, we need to go home too. Not everybody wants to sleep inside this cafe of yours," said the more agitated of the group.

Rayner winced a bit and proceeded with work. One by one he logged their terminals off and gave them their IDs used to register terminals, most had university IDs that had a batch number of those a year younger than him. They were seventeen year-olds after all, he thought.

"Feh, and I still look two years younger," he said to himself half in frustration, "I should grow a moustache."

He looked around after the players had left. It appeared to him that Ellie had gone home unceremoniously too without even bothering waking him up. He saw a note lying beside his chair. The cover read "To Rayn" and it had a drawing of a very cute, well-drawn Persian cat with its tongue sticking out.

He read it out loud with a tone of sarcastic frustration, "Thanks for the game. You should make your work hours like this standard."

The wastebasket was half a room away but when he crumpled the note and threw it, it landed smack in the middle of the trashbin. He gave out a muffled "oh yeah" and then proceeded with the locking of the now empty cafe. Thanks Ellie, but no thanks. He switched off all the PCs that were left switched on and then proceeded to shut of the lights one by one.

Then, just when he had turned off all forty-two PCs and all five light switches, lightning flashed outside, followed by thunder with a second's delay. He almost cringed from the loudness of it. But after that, he heard something more fearful.

Footsteps.

At first he thought he was imagining things. He crouched behind one of the rows of computers and traced where the sound had come from. The sound felt as though it had come near the counter. And it reminded him of the earlier conversations.

Burglar.

Criminal.

Ice Pick.

ICU.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he sighted an outline of a person near the counter. He couldn't believe his eyes, or his racing heart. He wished it was only his imagination.

The sound of footsteps echoed across the cafe again. They were a bit heavier than Ellie's and much lighter than those of the players who had been there earlier.

Thoughts ran around Rayner's head as he listened in on the intruder from a corner of the far side of the shop. And though they were many thoughts, they could have been summarized as a representation or the consequence of these four words: Burglar. Criminal. Ice Pick. ICU.

Rayner clutched his chest a moment and decided that he should at least give the burglar the preemptive punishment. He took one deep breath and made his move.

The silence of the cafe and the loudness of the raging storm outside was enough the give the situation a cinematic flavour of suspense. He crept up to the wandering shadow while staying near the darker sides of the powerless cafe and silently lifted the first thing that he had his hands on - his metal-covered sketchbook.

He aimed for what appeared to be a silhouetted nape, swung down as hard as he could, and closed his eyes. He heard a loud thump and then a slight grunt. Rayner's frail body shriveled, expecting a counterattack of sorts. But it never came. He opened his eyes and saw the figure had stopped moving.

After a few more moments, it lost balance and crashed to the wooden matting of the cafe.

"Wow, that was cool," he said to himself as he looked with a look of surprise at the bent metal frame in his hands and the body of an unconscious burglar in front of him.

Victory.


	4. Hindsight

**Chapter 3: Hindsight**

Christian wiped the sweat from his forehead using his handkerchief and puffed another from his half-consumed Marlboro. Smoke danced along the naked fluorescent lights of the lowered ceiling of the LAZARUS project operations room like the nimbus clouds of November, ominous and foreboding. Things had just turned from bad to infinitely worse.

"I'm sorry, I didn't seem to get the logic of what you just said Jeeves. Can you repeat it for me?" he said to a preoccupied Jeeves tinkering his workstation.

"What I have been saying for the last thirty minutes is that I didn't know where else to plug the brain-programming function during the startup of the dummy so I routed it to the program with the most logic incorporated to it at that time, and that would be the neural-control Ragnarok Online client on my machine. In lay man's words, I used Ragnarok Online to give her the personality and consciousness she needs."

Christian looked at Jeeves. He could buy the nerd's explanation of using a game to give something intelligence, but he wouldn't buy that a multi-million dollar project could just vanish into thin air. More plausible was the idea that if he couldn't produce an explanation for this disaster he would be the one to do the vanishing. "And how the hell does this relate to the disappearance of LAZARUS?"

Jeeves stopped banging on the keyboard and swiveled his chair towards the perplexed Christian. "To a limited extent, LAZARUS has the power to take on any ability that the sentience program etches into its brain. She could have used some unknown power upon waking up. Either that or she self-combusted on first contact with the air."

Christian stared at the screen of the workstation, client of Ragnarok Online still running on the background. "So there's a chance that she's dead?"

"I'm thinking that she's not. See, that's why I called you here," replied Jeeves while jotting a few notes on his journal from a standing position.

"Get to the point, genius."

Jeeves scoffed at his superior, almost to a wondering note why he has to be of higher rank than him in the first place. The first thing you have to learn when working a technical field after all is to be forgiving of ignorance.

"Look at my workstation, Christian."

"What about it?"

"After the incident last night, its power consumption went triple, almost putting the power circuit of this lab on overload. This box was the last thing I connected to LAZARUS before she woke up. Power levels spiked to a high during her disappearance and then maintained a very high power signature afterwards."

"Are you trying to say this workstation here is somehow linked to her?"

"Yes, and it seemed to reflect her status too, but after a few minutes its activity minimized."

"So she's dead?"

"No; the program's still running. If the host specimen, the LAZARUS dummy girl, dies, this symbiotic program should stop with it, and vice versa," said Jeeves as he highlighted the monitoring functions of the high-end computer.

Christian leaned back, immersed in his deep thoughts. There was more to this accident than he had hoped for.

"I don't know. But if you ask me, she's not exactly dead," Jeeves read out the readings from the idle server, "if she really is out there, she should be either weakened or unconscious because of some external event."

"Then," Christian replied while taking a deep breath of gray smoke, "if that's the case, we find her before anybody else finds out."


	5. Mistaken

**Chapter 4: Mistaken**

Behold, the victorious.

Like a triumphant gladiator, Rayner marched with a proud strut towards the burglar. His head, spinning in circles in a haze of fear, excitement, and bewilderment. Not only had he protected the shop, he had also managed to capture the criminal!

Rayner prodded the dimly outlined body slumped on the floor, there were traces of water everywhere, probably from the rain outside when the intruder came in. It was during those moments that Rayner realised that the battle might not be over yet, that the burglar was just waiting for him to get near. With his right hand at the ready with his notebook, he backed towards the wall by the cafe entrance and flipped the light switch open.

From a 120 mile-per-hour heartbeat, Rayner's heart screeched to a grinding halt and left him partly groping his chest. His bent, metal-bound notebook fell to the floor with a clang.

It was a sight less terrifying than it really was, had fate not been so playful with him. Drenched in yellowish fluid lay on the cold matting. The body of a lithe young woman, face down on the floor, with long black hair outlining an unblemished skin tone of her exposed shoulders and legs. Towards the back of her head was a very nasty black mark at the back that if inspected closer could have yielded the etched mark of Rayner's hardbound notebook.

Rayner didn't know what or why there was an unconscious girl wearing a bathing suit inside his locked cafe but he was quite confident of himself, to a terrifying conclusive degree, that she was no burglar.

And that he may have actually killed her in the process.

From hero to murderer in one minute flat.

"Why me??" blurted a very frustrated Rayner as he dropped to his knees beside his unexpected visitor. "What the hell is going on?" Rayner grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her twice.

No response.

He shook the girl a third time and let her roll to her back. Rayner took a quick look at the girl, her full lips were pale and her eyes, wide shut. Her chest didn't appear to be moving, showing no signs of even weak breathing. At least to Rayner, it wasn't.

"Wake up!" he shouted to the girl but in vain.

Rayner paused and slumped himself into the cold floor. He couldn't possibly have done this to her with just one hit. That's it! He thought, she must've drowned!

Inside a cafe.

Without any water.

Everything that night was beyond illogical. It was insane. Rayner checked for her pulse. It was still there. He was not murderer just yet but if she didn't start breathing anytime soon, he might as well surrender himself to the police.

Sweat drops started gushing out of every pore on his forehead that cold night.

It was then he remembered all his training from high school military training. Well, not really, just one in particular that seemed practical at that time, for more reasons than just one.

Mouth to mouth resuscitation.

Rayner reassured himself. This isn't a kiss. Just something to help somebody not die, right? There was a voice inside of him screaming, "There's goes your chastity!"

Rayner closed his eyes, gently lifted her nose to open a small gap between her lips and slowly bent down for the resuscitation.

"Here goes!"


	6. Rain March

**Chapter 5: Rain March**

It was dark outside, even amidst the company of the street lamps - the air possessed the silhouetting power of heavy rain. Shattering cold winds created a wave of precipitate every now and then, bringing with it shivers that seeped down soaked clothing.

Rayner slowly trudged his way along a puddled sidewalk adjacent to the University's fenced boundaries with a bear-faced smug stretching cheek to cheek. He swung from side to side like a shoddily balanced pendulum, bearing weight with movement. Every step from his Chuck Taylor sneakers landed uneasily along the cobbled walkway while his shadow danced counter-clockwise with the passing of each vehicle along the road beside him.

The young man's wet cloth-enveloped body arched while he lurched slowly but surely. Piggy-backed behind him, the limp stranger, face buried into Rayner's broad back, wearing the black Adidas windbreaker, edges mapping her white, slender legs glossed by the night rain supported by Rayner's arms. That jacket would have protected Rayner from the cold rain, but he figured, she may need it more, given that she was wearing nothing more than those sleek black skin suits that may have well been designed for Olympian-level swimming.

So the mouth-to-mouth didn't work as well as he had hoped. It was embarrassing even to think about it. What in the world was he thinking, thought Rayner. The girl was still unconscious and she couldn't possibly be left behind at the cafe. The next best thing? Take her somewhere she would at least be remotely safe.

His house, perhaps?

Rayner thought about what he had done a few minutes earlier. Despite her unconsciousness, her lips were warm and supple - nobody ever mentioned that in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation training. For a moment, his wet cheeks flushed with heat from within. He swallowed hard, kept any other ideas from coming into his head ,and trudged on.

Then he thought of him carrying her to his house. The young man shook his head, now's not the time for after thoughts. For Rayner that night, there was no other option.

His walk was very slow, making the short distance from the internet cafe to his apartment seem to be the span of a marathon, or maybe even a monsoon Collin Mcrae rally, without the cars and with more mud.

And with the rain, came the realisation of consequence. He had just attacked an innocent girl and had caused her to suffer concussion. His heart beat wildly along with his aching lungs as he exerted even more effort to carry her farther. To top that off, he had landed his lips on her - on a very philanthropical nature of course but it hardly mattered at that moment. How he would explain himself and what had happened to her was something beyond him.

------------

After what seemed to be a hundred years of walking, Rayner finally got to the stairs leading to his second floor single-room cubist apartment situated in a bourgeoisie patch of neighborhood lorded over by the monolithic central administration building of the university a good block away. It wasn't exactly the perfect place to stay but it was roomy enough to house two people - and it was dry inside.

Each step climbing the stairs enervating and calculated, but it was the final mile so Rayner hardly even noticed it. Rayner bit the chain of the keys hanging by his neck and dexterously inserted it to the doorknob. A short tug from the chain and a nudge from his knee opened the door.

With seemingly one last exertion of effort, he half-threw the girl into the faux-leather sofa, soft wet body bouncing into the cushion with almost a splash, He then got towels from the rack beside the singles bathroom at the far right of the darkened room, and wrapped them into his unexpected visitor.

"Now to get myself dry," the young man muttered to himself. He took one step away from the sofa but was no longer able to continue. His vision blurred and fever came down faster than any event that night. A few seconds later, his knees weakened bucked from exhaustion.

"Not good," Rayner said as he collapsed to the tiled floor helplessly.


	7. Breakfast in Bed

**Chapter 6: Breakfast in Bed**

Rayner's eyes emerged from the narrow slits of sleep. It took a while before the warmth of the sun coming from the uncurtained part of the west end window of his room to hit his cheeks with prickly effect. For some reason, everything felt off that morning, much to his wonder at first. At least, until he remembered last night.

He found himself in his bed, blanketed and in dry clothes. Last thing he remembered was that he had accidentally assaulted a strange girl inside the cafe and had carried her here. What happened afterwards, he couldn't remember. And speaking of the girl...

Rayner quickly looked around and found a silhouette outlined by the morning rays by the bench just beside the main window. He rose from bed halfway and sat propped by the headboard. He patiently waited for his eyes to adjust.

As his vision cleared an image of a girl appeared. He could only make out parts of her face, she bore rosy white complexion and full red lips, contrasted by flowing black wavy hair that glistened with the morning light. From a distance she almost looked like a movie star in a photo op as she slouched in the bench with one leg folded up and crossed with the other with only long sleeves and short boxers to cover her up.

Rayner swallowed what saliva he had in his dry mouth. Those garments, they were his boxers and long sleeves. But never mind that. There's a very beautiful woman in his apartment!

The bed stirred as Rayner moved away from bed. This caught the attention of his visitor and met him with her full hazel eyes.

"You're awake," said the lady in a mellow voice that sounded suited for singing.

The visitor stood up and walked towards his makeshift kitchen not too far from the living quarters. Rayner could only watch in bewilderment.

"I've made breakfast. Tricky cookery gadgets, you have around here," she said as she got a plate Rayner had not noticed moments ago. "You were feverish from the cold rain when I woke up so I had to heal and dry you up. Anyway, you have to eat up to replenish strength."

The lady approached Rayner and placed the plate on the nearby table. He couldn't remember how long it has been since he's had a complete breakfast before, sausages cooked to golden brown and perfectly round eggs with buttered toast. Seeing this gave him a bit of embarrassment as he tried to squirm out a reply, "Erm, thanks... uh..."

The visitor smiled back, "My name is Celestine. High Priestess Celestine Edencourt. Call me Celeste or Cel or whatever. Thanks for saving my life yesterday, though everything is still a blur to me. I blacked out on duty and when I woke up, somebody assaulted me from behind. I thought I was done for."

Rayner's heart began to beat faster. Save? Wasn't he the one who had almost killed her? He looked at Celestine's nape, it was still black and blue from his metallic notebook. How do I tell her, he thought. This girl had a weird aura about her, and it wasn't just the helluva long name and her weird looks.

"Anyway, eat up."

Sweatdrops formed along Rayner's forehead as he watched Celestine excitedly observe how he put the buttered toast in his mouth. He bit the toast with a frantic crunching sound.

Immediately Rayner spit out the whole thing back into the plate with his tongue hanging out as though it was being cured on the spot with battery acid. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU PUT IN THIS? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?"

Celeste scratched her head. A faint blush permeated across her cheeks, "I'm not exactly too good with the kitchen. I only copied what our house help does. Sorry about the salt, the shaker kinda burst open when I was cooking that."

Rayner felt incensed, forgetting for a while everything that happened. With an indignant voice he bantered on, "This thing tastes more like rocksalt than toast."

"Hey, I'm trying!" replied Celestine in a snobbish overtone.

"If I knew better I swear I'd think you're trying to get back at me for hitting you last ni..."

He didn't even get to finish his sentence. Celestine's eyes mutated from gentle and angelic to fiery devilish.

"You did what?" Cel asked in an interrogating undertone as she lunged towards Rayner, grabbed both of his shoulders and pinned him down the bed.

"Bad move, Rayn," Rayner whispered to himself. Removed from it all, he could not help but stare at the generous fronts that lay a few inches above his chest. His heart beat even faster.

"If this is all you're doing, I'm going to hit you so hard, you'll be begging for Niffleheim!"

"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, I SWEAR!" beggingly shouted Rayner as he tried to wiggle out of her hold.

"Yeah, as if I haven't heard that one before!" said Celestine as she raised her closed right fist on top of Rayn's horrified face.

Then, a hurried voice shot through from behind the front door followed by intense knocking caught Celestine's attention. It was a most familiar voice.

"Rayn? Is your butt still there? Zamora will kill us again if we're late for his class!"


	8. Ellie, Rayner, Celestine

**Chapter Seven: Ellie, Rayner, Celestine**

Bang. BANG. **BANG!**

The pounding sound of aching wood resonanced in Rayn's temples. In front of him, or rather at that moment, on top of him, was a woman in calculated rage, filled with vendetta and aching napes. Outside was a bomb waiting to explode - Ellie. Shoulders pinned by surprisingly strong shoulders, Rayn couldn't do more than stare at the door helplessly.

"Are you in there Rayn? We're going to be late already!"

And then came the moment, that moment of silence just after the fuse runs out and before the payload of a bomb hits you. The strange girl in Rayner's long-sleeve shirt turned to the door and shouted back with a placid, imperative voice of a Weekend killer, "Rayn's busy right now."

The door banging stopped. Rayn's chest heaved and froed quickly as he could only watch things unfold. His ears strained for outside noise.

"Is there someone in there with you, RayNER?" a half-shrilled exclamation.

Rayner mustered all the strength he could. Now was the moment to say his piece, to let Ellie know the situation. Right, Ellie could arbitrate, and better than anybody he could think of! With all his might, the young man tugged up his left shoulder, causing Cel to push down harder. Rayn pushed his back deeper down the mattress and slid his shoulder past the grip, and eventually snaked his way towards the left side of the bed.

Celeste got up from her position and watched Rayner dash for the door. She clasped her hands and closed her eyes, still motionless and half spread across the unmade bed.

"Tranquilos et paxis por un et mundi, grantos solte der..." she softly uttered in a half-tongue chant reminiscent of a Portuguese vesper in a relaxed, stroll cadence.

Rayn opened the door with full excitement, in his wavering pajamas, and brought in morning light, aura of a very surpised Ellie. At long last!

"LEX DIVINA," culminated Celeste at that moment as she wobbly stood atop the bed in a dominating posture of an aristocrat.

Ellie rolled back her eyes and started off her loquial machinegun while trying to break the screen of Rayn's spread out arms by skipping side to side, "It took you long enough. And whose voice was that I heard? Are you keeping something from me?"

Rayner explained everything at once. Or at least he thought he did. But even as he opened his mouth, nothing would come out, as though every sound he tried to make got sucked back down his throat, where not even himself would hear it - and for no reason at all.

"What are you trying to say? What was that, Rayn? You're a stupid bum, you say?"

Rayn shook is head and tried again, to no avail.

"Listen, little mermaid, I don't have all day to guess what you're saying. Why don't you just let me check that room of your..." Ellie couldn't even finish what she was saying as silence befell her - a different kind of silence.

Shock.

Rayn heard footsteps from behind, followed by the forced tap on his shoulder. Cel's strangely glory-happy face peered between his left shoulder and the door pane, "This man here tried to kidnap me. Now I'm going to kill him. Run along, you're bothering us."

"There's... there's..." Ellie stuttered vibrato from what she was seeing. Her eyes traced Cel's body as it lithed out from the back of the room - she was barely clothed - and in what was recognizably Rayn's unironed clothing - suggestive, if it's not too bold a comment.

Rayn finally gave up trying to open and close his mouth in an attempt to explain everything to both Cel and Ellie, he sighed the deep sigh and waited. Soon enough it came.

"PERVEEERT!"

Then a slap so fierce, cats leapt away from neighboring trees in shock. Rayn tried to recuperate and respond back but it was all too late, Ellie had dashed off away from his flat, leaving him and his guest alone once more, added a swollen cheek this time of course.

"Now, where was I?" turned Celeste to a badly disfigured Rayner, "Oh yeah, payback."

Rayn waved his hands across his face in an attempt to stunt the next round of pain but what happened next, he couldn't have guessed in his lifetime.

Celestine's eyes whited out while the hair in Rayn's skin started standing up from static. Her clothes flapped wildly even though there was hardly any wind in the room. What the hell, he thought, is this for real? Soon enough, her hands started glowing, pale flashes of ember beamed out like miniature steel pikes from the tips of the borrowed longsleeves.

Rayn tried to scream, but there was still no voice in him. He watched her inch closer to him while he squandered back to the living room on all fours.

"I'll show you what makes a high priestess something to fear," Celestine smiled with a half-intended look of mischief.

Rayner look horrified, still a mess with his loss of voice, and pale as the white wall behind him. Was this the end? What a way to die!

Then, the visitor stopped edging her way towards the young man and looked at her luminous right hand as though something apass Rayner's knowledge has happened.

She held it up once, only to see it taper off up close. The four-corner room once again returned to it's dark self as the light source vanished, with it's single living candle falling like a flower of life bereft, prevented from slamming into the floor by the cradling arms of her strange adversary.


	9. With The Right Foot

**Chapter 8: With The Right Foot, We Start Again **

_There are times in your life when just nothing seems to go your way. It's as though the three fates are conspiring to make everything harder by the moment. Stay strong and take notice of why these things are happening... _

Random words of a mentor from the recesses of the mind, flooding in at this time. Why now, Celestine asks herself as she shook her head back to reality.

"You're finally awake," a familiar, yet unusually calm voice broke her slumber. Remembering her situation before, she gasped once and tried to get up from a bed she knew she hadn't slept in. A singular, gentle push from a hand on her forehead was enough to land her weakened self back to the mattress.

"And here I was thinking you're dead. Rest a bit some more. I don't know what happened earlier but I should have known that rain last night had gotten to you." Eyes widened from the narrow slits and confronted that young man again, Cel recalled. She did remember waking up wearing his jacket while he, ironically, had collapsed due to a fever. Tables have been turned, at her weakened state, using any of her clerical skills would just worsen her condition.

"Drink up," commanded Rayn as he held out a warm mug of strange-scented chocolate.

_Priestesses are trained to take care of their selves, to never get in the way of whomever they're with. And perhaps, in that sort of independence, you lose touch of what you're doing because you'll never need, never know, never appreciate what you give - support... _

Celestine sighed once, heart-worthy before she sipped the chocolate with white smoke still dancing on its surface, not even caring who had offered it. She looked at the young man once - he really didn't look like the part she cut out for him, he didn't even have a weapon by his side.

"Just before I fainted earlier, I saw you catch me in passing, even when I was intending to exact revenge," Celestine half-whispered while staring at her shake-still hands, white as death, "Why?" 

"Because," the young man looked out away from the priestess to expel a short chuckle, "it will take only a certain number of concussions before you turn into a gibbering wreck, talking to the walls of a mental hospital. I hate crazy people."

The priestess raised an eyebrow at Rayn's seeming amusement, "You find hitting me in the head funny?"

"No. No, I find it amusing because I never did intend on hurting you in the first place and what happend's all been a big friggin' misunderstanding." replied Rayner with hints of agitation.

"So you do admit that you are to blame for my injuries?"

"I didn't say no, did I? If you remember the situation you'd know it was an honest mistake and I'm sorry for it, really."

"Well how should I know what happened when I'm always unconscious?"

"Then would you at least listen to my side of the story before start doing freaky things with your hands?"

_... When everything goes against your way, it may be that you're just facing the wrong direction. _

Cel gave a careful nod and Rayn raises the edge of his lips implying 'let's not start with the wrong foot'. Perhaps, Brother Anakris, you are right even when you are babbling, Celestine said to herself, but that we'll just have to see as things pass.

She listened to his story. And it was like a new dawn for that room, far better than that of the morning, and for no real significant reason at all, when the High Priestess smiled again after not having done so in a very long time.

"Oh, and yeah ,thanks for the jacket."


	10. Realizations

**Chapter 9: Realizations**

"So do you remember what happened last night the way I told you?" asked Rayner as he faced the red stop light of a busy street along Taft avenue, black backpack slung behind him with his black faded denim straight-cut pants, sneakers, and white polo with a green patch sewn in it's right pocket.

He was astride a girl wearing a knitted paperboy cap, an oversized red tee and green cargo pants that shouted "down dawg" at anybody appreciative enough to look beyond the smug.

Teeth showing of a picturesque, frustrated snarl, the girl replied, "If I did remember I wouldn't even need to listen to your long story."

"For somebody lost who wound up in our cafe, you sure are weird. In not remembering those things, I mean. Anyway, I think it would be better for you if we came back to where I found you," Rayn said, "maybe you'll remember then."

Cel looked around her. Lustrous metal wagons drawn by no beasts were about, movement directed only by strange fluctuating lights of red orange and green. Even in Einbroch she's never seen such things. She looked at Rayn and said, "It looks like it's my first time here umm..."

She then realised, she hadn't even caught his name once.

"What's your name again?" she slowly asked.

Rayner looked to his side with one eyebrow raised. Did he actually miss telling his name to this girl? He tried to keep composure,

"The name's Rayner. Rayn for short."

"Weird name. You don't get a lot of people with that name."

"Not quite as queer as CE-LES-TINE."

"That's High Priestess Celestine to you, layman."

"Whatever, little miss uppity."

The pedestrian light turned green and the two quit the chatter and proceeded to their way. It was a short walk back to school - a lot shorter than what Rayner had to walk the night before at least, and with lighter load.

"I feel like a kid wearing my mom's clothes," complained Cel as she blew a whiff just enough to make her wavy newly formed bangs dangle for a while, "it's getting embarrassing."

"Well if you had been walking with other than a swimsuit, you wouldn't have to put up with my last year's hand-me-downs," replied Rayn, still cranky from last night but nonetheless normal. He looked a bit more at Celestine and swallowed, still he wasn't expecting her to carry the clothes so well.

Frozen silence filled the gap as they walked a few more blocks. Then, Celestine finally couldn't stand the awkwardness and broke it with a shrilled enquiry, "So you mean to say I just appeared inside your cafe, thought I was a burglar and hit me in the head?"

Rayner nodded, "What's strange is that I never heard you come in. It's almost like you teleported from another place and into the bloody room!"

_Teleport._ The word struck Cel down with great pangs in her heart. So much so that she immediately fell to her knees by the sidewalk. Head supported by both of her hands as though if she didn't do that, it would explode from the pressure.

Fellow pedestrians noticed but hardly gave a damn as they passed by. Rayner rushed to her.

"Are you alright?" asked he. But at that time, she couldn't hear what Rayn said. It was being drowned by voices of her lost memories as they gushed back in.

The Payon caves.

Seeing her body dematerialize.

Waking up drowning in a vat of strange green fluid with various tubes attached to different parts of her body.

Celestine felt her right wrists. There was still a mark of where one of the tubes had been connected and it still stung a little when she touched it. It was definitely not a dream.

"Teleport," she said to nobody in particular. Rayner looked at her when she said it but gave a what-did-you-just-say look with a matching raised eyebrow as she got up and started walking again.

Celestine recalled the first thing she did when she kicked open the vat where she woke up. She cast the body relocation spell taught to her as an acolyte as a last desperate move to avoid danger. She didn't say anymore though as both her and Rayner moved along the same walk towards the University.

"Rayner," said Celestine as she stopped, looking at the pavement almost in shame, "This might sound too much to ask of you if you already did help me back there..."

"Spill it," replied the young man as he tucked his hands inside the pockets of his pants, "while I'm in a good mood for helping strangers who like to show magic tricks to people they want to beat up."

But it was Rayner who was surprised this time to not hear a snappy retaliation.

"I," she said with a hushed voice, signaturely not her, even when she was still back in Payon, "I need your help in getting back to Prontera."

Rayner did not reply at once. He gave this pokerfaced look that stole any guesses away from Cel as she waited for his reply. Only the roars of the metal wagons filled the air now. Finally, Rayn opened his mouth.

"Where the hell is a Prontera? Sounds like a shady bar in Malate."

Cel returned a puzzled look. It was, after all, impossible for somebody to exist in the civilised world without ever hearing of the Holy Capital. Even in the frontierlands yet to be added to the republic, they at least knew the known center of the world.

"Excuse me?" she said.

"I said," replied Rayn, arrogance intended, "where the hell is Prontera."

"Gah nevermind," the priestess impatiently replied. It should be her day today and none else's, "just tell me where we are so I can locate the nearest Sanctuarium."

Rayn briefly laid the back of his palm on Celestine's forehead, "No fever here. Did I hit you too hard? We're in The University, Cel. This is Manila. The closest you will reach to a sanctuarium here is a sanitarium, which is where I'll be sending you if you don't stop the nonsense. Are you from the provinces or something?"

"I'm not crazy, dammit," half shouted Cel as she pulled away from Rayn's feeling hand and wandered her eyes around the university buildings that had grown in front of them as they walked closer, "I'm - uh - lost. That's it! I'm lost."

Sweat drops started forming around the high priestess's eyebrows. It might be the heat, but then again she has never seen such odd structures before, with all those beastless-carriages running about, and having her latent abilities, as she tried feeling for it, almost diminished to nil...

"Anyway," Rayn heaved his books up and started walking towards the University entrance, "I already cut my first class because of you. My next class is about to start in a while and I don't want to miss any more so we should wait till my classes finish if we're to find where you're from."

"Well what do you expect me to do, Rayn? I can't just wait here for your classes to finish! I'm not familiar with the place," trounced Celestine, hands on her waists and eyebrows raised in an angle, "and besides, a bit of education never hurt anybody."

Rayner swallowed hard, his heart frozen stiff and filled with consequences unimaginable. "What did you say?"

"I said, I'm coming with you."


	11. Science

**Chapter 10: Experiments **

"There." Jeeves pointed out a distinct angular wave in the black and green screen of the oscilloscope reminiscent of an earthquake mark in a seismograph, "See the power spike I've been talking about on the phone?"

The research room was still shrouded with cigarette smoke as it was the day before. Lights have been cut down save for the raster-induced light from the monitors and various light indicators of machines found around the room. Two men sat at one corner of the room staring at what seemed to them as an unfolding miracle to their bleak situation.

The glow from the dark green waves of the device and a disinterested grimace made Chris's face orcish. He smiled and said, "This one happened just this morning?"

"Yes," replied Jeeves while tuning one of the various knobs on the tool with one hand and clutching his labgown with the other, "The last time this happened was last night, just after she disappeared. The power consumption value of my computer fell for the rest of the night but became normal after daylight. Then just now, it spiked again and tapered off."

Both men stared at the monitor as though they were just reading morning news. Chris eventually smiled, "You were saying over the phone that the power consumption of this computer is relative to the power intrinsic activities of our subject right? Spikes like this can only mean..."

"Usage of force of the LAZAR core inside her body - equating to both her strength and consciousness."

"Interesting. Most interesting. Now we can monitor her power usages and consciousness through this device."

"I think I get where you're going. I was thinking though, too much power in this machine can make our subject too... superhuman. It sounds dangerous having her go wandering without monitoring though. Do I shut it off?"

Chris paused for quite a while, thought immersed with the dancing of accumulated smoke in the basement laboratory. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, "No - I want to wait till we see the project again. This project is seeing second light. Think of this as field testing. Just make sure the power of this machine is restricted, Jeeves."

The other man almost laughed. "You have to be kidding me. We aren't even sure that she's really around. And we don't even know the face that was behind the cerebral modulation mask when she was still in the tank. How do we know that it's her even if we do find her outside this laboratory?"

Jeeve's superior leaned back from the computer table. He picked up a montblanc roller pen and pretended to be in a mock swordfight with an invisible foe. "The true nature of LAZARUS is not humanitarian research. Our primary sponsor next to the Brothers is the military. She has a personality override chip located at the base of her spine between her neck and back that gives her some sort of combat mode as specifically requested by the bigwigs at Bonfacio. That's one of the confidential details of this project."

"Combat Personality override chip? What's that? Like a kill mode or something? Are you saying we just let loose a superhuman killer in a densely populated campus?" Jeeves stood up and slammed his hands on the table. "Why the hell did you keep these things from me Chris?"

"Slow down, dragonslayer. She is programmed to disable any opponents, not kill. Like I said, field testing. We'll know her by the wave of destruction she'll be creating," Chris replied with a confident tone.

Jeeves didn't reply but instead stood up and removed his labcoat, exposing maroon longsleeves with oversized collars and flaunted cuffs from the hippie era. "Where do you think you're going, Jeeves?" asked Chris.

"I'm going outside. Who knows, I might even run across her."

That said, the young researcher left the room, leaving Chris resting his chin between the knuckles of his fists, arms arched on the computer table. "Be careful what you wish for."


	12. Magic

**Chapter 11: Magic **

It was almost lunchtime when the two arrived at the green-paint iron-wrought gates of the University's southern entrance. A constant stream of faceless young men in black slacks and white polos and young women in white blouse and green skirt uniforms streamed through the narrow passageway separating the cloisters of the campus from the harsh world of the inducted outside.

"I have a question," said Rayn as he stared at the bronze statue of a saint hovering just above the entrance, "how were you able to produce fireworks with from the sleeves of your polo earlier? Are you a pyromaniac who always keeps gunpowder around?"

"Fireworks?" Cel asked back.

Rayner gestured the opening and closing of his palms, eyes still glued at the statue as though watching for some miracle to happen akin to what he had seen earlier. "Bang! Like exploding light that momentarily blinds whoever sees it! Your magic trick earlier, it looked awesome."

Celestine chuckled and tipped her hat, still awonder at everything she's seeing, horseless carriages, clothes, buildings and all. It was funny seeing somebody asking about magic when it was all around them – as she saw it. "Magic trick? Oh, that! You're lucky I wasn't able to deliver the Holy Light in full force. Otherwise you'd be sleeping tightly in an infirmary somewhere with a few broken bones minus consciousness." 

"Broken bones? Are you into some new David Blaine magic cross martial arts kind of gig?"

"David what?" Celestine asked, insulted and almost disappointed as well. She sighed once and then lift up her hands and moved it closer to Rayn, "you mean this?"

It was just as marvelous albeit seemingly dangerous for Rayner to see it again. Spheres of light no larger than rosary beads formed at the tips of her fingers, each one radiating pure white light painful to the eye like a stare into a fog lamp, but still visible enough to take a round shape. But it looked too dangerous and conspicuous. Rayner had to grab her arm and let it down with his eyes closed and face looking away.

"Not here," he said.

"You mean to say you've never seen the Holy Light before? Every priest knows how to do it. It's how we defend ourselves."

Rayner sighed once again, causing his shoulders to collapse inward, almost screaming here-we-go-again. He looked at Cel once, "Don't you think you're pushing this weirdness gig a bit? I mean you say you're a priestess and then you show strange powers and say it's normal? You should have seen how people looked at you earlier."

The young woman lifted the visor of her cap and looked around, nobody around her was paying attention. At least not now, they're not. "I don't think they are, you know. You and your paranoia."

"Anyway," Rayner lined up between the various railings directing students to the gaping entrance hall of the University and pointed at the gates with his thumb, "there's no use hanging around here so we might as well get inside."

There was a sudden shift of expression in Rayner's face as they lined up for the entrance, his eyebrows crooked as though in pain. Celestine noticed this immediately and gave his knap a short tug and said, "What's wrong?"

"Are you enrolled in this university?"

"I finished my conventional studies at the Pronteran Academy two years ago so no - I don't think so."

"Damn," Rayn rubbed his chin while thinking, "I just remembered they've installed new biometric scanning devices on all entrances since last term. I don't think won't let anybody who's not enrolled through."

Cel raised her entwined arms to stretch in full confidence, "Biomentric? I don't know what that is but that's okay. I'm a high priestess; as beings of enlightenment, we're always welcome in any institution of knowledge."

And perhaps, due to the confidence of Celestine, Rayner could even convince himself that she was probably right. Or at least, he had enough to let her try. No harm in trying, he said to himself as he extended his thumb into the fingerprint scanner that looked more like the table scanner in a supermarket cashier with all its laser emissions. Right?

Beep! Beep! Beep! The biometric machine sounded thrice. An LED screen in the coal-black block standing between the turnstiles showed information about the person who entered.

**- Access Granted to Student Number 10608047 - **

Rayner turned back to a Celestine who still carried herself pretty much the same way she does - in a composed manner befitting of the girls of fine-upbringing at some lost Victorian era. Far removed from any hint of tension, she looked back at him and pressed her thumb at the biometric machine.

Rayn closed his eyes. If this didn't work, he couldn't begin to imagine how to prevent her from being thrown out, or worse, into jail!

Beep! Beep! Beep! repeated the machine as before.

It... worked? Rayner couldn't believe it. He looked at the screen between the turnstiles and read closely.

**- Access Granted to Special Student #NNNN-NNNNN - **

Cel walked past Rayner's face with his mouth ajar. Inside his head, there was nothing but maelstrom. Light out of her hands was one thing. But how the hell could somebody like her be able to fool something so sophisticated?

"Toldja it would work," Cel gloated for a bit, "problem is, you _never_ believe anything I say."

Rayn took a look at the screen again and exhaled through is mouth. Things just keep getting weirder and weirder. Was there anything to believe?


	13. Rooftop

**Chapter 12: The Rooftop **

Wind blew from the sea of green that was the soccer field up into the engineering building's west-end wall. It splashed straight into Ellie's face and waving hair as she sat on the rooftop's concrete sides, legs crossed and eyes closed. Her green skirt and white blouse almost made her blend with the horizon of green lawns and light blue skies beyond. There was a hint of agitation in her face that morning - slight albeit unusual.

The rooftop door opened directly behind her, making Ellie break from her trance-like indulgence of the cool breeze.

"I thought you'd be here, babyface," a hoarse male voice shot from behind her. Ellie didn't bother to look. It was him. She bent her lips ever so slightly and turned a smile. "It's just you. AND WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING BABYFACE?"

"Just me?" the voice replied, "Maa, maa. That's just not the reaction I've been wanting to get. And it's such a good morning to boot. Did you get up in the wrong side today? Or let me guess. You and Rayn had one of those piddle fights again eh?"

Ellie remembered what had happened that morning, Rayn, that mysterious girl and all. For some reason though, she'd rather not have talked about it. The scene was beyond explanation, she thought to herself. Somebody so stoic couldn't be possibly hiding a girlfriend from her - could he? But that's not something she wanted to delve on that morning, the very thought boiled her blood.

"I got your bragmail last night," Ellie segued "You're saying that you can create an intelligent program that learns from how a character moves in-game and make it into an ultra-realistic copy of its personality? Sounds fishy."

A man came alongside her and sat in almost the same manner. He wore long hair, box glasses with an unmistakable maroon long-sleeved polo with oversized disco-era collars, giving him the look of a hippie lost in time. His face, though of youth, looked more like in his early twenties with stubbles of roughly shaven facial hair and a more ruggedly chiseled face.

"That's the long and short of it. Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of creating an entire race of independent bots. Like a tamagotchi of sorts. Imagine, your very own personal army in-game of not just dumb bots, but almost living things that learn and evolve," replied the young senior.

"Holy s--t, Jerimiah Esteves! We're going to be rich with this kind of project!"

The young man locked Ellie's neck with his arm and drew her close. "HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOT TO USE MY FULL NAME?? JEEVES. JEEVES!"

Ellie buried her elbow into the groin of the man called Jeeves with considerable violence. "Fine, but that doesn't give you a right to go cuddle up like that - Jeeves. God, why do you fancy such a stupid name?"

Jeeves almost fell back from his seat in anguish. "Fine," he grumbled in fetal position, "you're fiesty as ever. I still can't get over that side of yours." Jeeves gave out a grunt of pain.

Then came something unexpected. Ellie turned to Jeeves and moved his face towards hers. She titled a bit and kissed him in the lips lightly. The boy flushed red.

"Jeeves, we tried didn't we?" Ellie spoke softly, "it didn't work out. And if you ask me, I'd still really love to have you as a very good friend. You're a good guy and you're going to make a girl really happy one day. I'll be rooting for my favorite lab assistant till that happens."

The melodied lunch bell rang all over the campus, muffling a young man's sigh. Ellie just put on the similar happy-greet face she had beforehand. Jeeves stood up and faced the strong winds from the field.

"Classes are starting," said Jeeves while watching a faint outline of a familiar figure walking with another student in civilian clothes along an unroofed walk leading towards the building, "We should go downstairs now."


	14. Classroom

**Chapter 13: The Classroom **

"What now?" Rayn asked Celestine. In front of them was room V405 of the Engineering building. For that period, it was to be venue for the General Philosophy class of Professor Bridge Roxas. The young man patted his forehead, "I don't think she's the type to allow sit-in students in her class, specially the type that's not even enrolled." 

The young priestess smiled as she walked into the room and straight towards Miss Roxas who at that time was busy writing something on her table while waiting for classes to start. "Let me handle this then," Celestine said in passing. Rayner could only wonder at what she's going to pull off next.

The young priestess raised her hand and then placed two of her fingers into her lips as she whispered to herself, _"Cirrus auri. Divini vi ruwachis. Ensebles felisus. Pnumasei Pneuma - the breathing divine." _She pointed back at the open door as though she was pointing to the Rayner who was standing there. There was a faint trace of blue mist coming from the tips of her fingers.

"Me?" Rayner asked, whispering. Celeste snickered and shook her head. "No, behind you."

Rayner turned and almost died of fright as he saw a towering Caucasian Brother in friar's clothes standing right behind him.

The Brothers ran the University. They were the ones who founded the institute almost a century ago as missionaries from France. And although they were the most influential people on campus, they were rarely seen mingling with its populous, giving them an illuminati-like status. And yet, just now, here was one right beside him.

The brother walked towards the teacher's table and stood right beside the priestess. Miss Roxas immediately stopped what she was doing and stood in attention out of respect. The kindly brother gestured her as though he wanted her to sit once more.

"What can I do for you, Brother Smith?" asked the professor.

The Brother smiled and replied with a Southern State accent, "I would just like to ask if this young woman over here can sit in your class for a while as a part of an international community enrichment program. We've heard that your class is one of the few exceptional features for philosophy in this campus so we recommended her to your position."

The comment caught her with her defenses down. Here was a Brother praising her for her teaching and asking her to accept a student. Professor Roxas bowed a bit and said, "I would be honored to include err..."

Celestine immediately bowed back, "Celestine EdenCourt, for your mentorship."

"Welcome to our class, Celestine. We will begin shortly," the Professor said, smiling. Rayner could only watch in disbelief. How could somebody so strange be associated with the most powerful people on Campus? He waited for both the Brother and Celestine to excuse themselves and walk out of the room. He followed them into a darkened corridor of the building.

He heared the priestess whisper, "_Dispelis Pneuma - vanishing wind_." And to his shock and horror, Brother Smith was gone, just like that, without an air of a trace.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" he exclaimed. Celestine turned around and smiled. "That's how you get yourself enrolled in a class with a bit of Sanctuarian arts." Rayner could only hear junk coming from Celestine. His face filled with alarm and voice with shaking, "Where did you take Brother Smith? What happened to him?"

The priestess raised an eyebrow and looked at Rayn straight on. "Hmm? There is no Brother Smith. I saw from a listing here that brotherly friars ran this school. So I invented a certain brother Smith to help me out using Pneuma."

"What."

"It's all an illusion. Haven't you ever seen any priest do a simple trick like that? What kind of backwater place is this anyway?" Celestine said with an agitated voice, "Roxas thought she knew the guy because my spell convinced her that she did."

And that was just the limit of for Rayner that morning and he would have none of it anymore. "That's it. I don't think I can take more of this." He turned his back and walked towards the main corridor to the classroom. He turned one more time to glance if it was all a trick, that Brother Smith was hiding somewhere behind him.

And before he knew it, he had bumped into somebody with an all too familiar voice.

"Watch it, Cassanova!" the voice said half shrilled and agitated.

Rayner turned and it was Ellie. And the day couldn't have started any better. 

----------------

Chapter notes:  
Pneuma, according to greek tradition, means air or spirit, and is generally used to describe a non-tangible influence or entity, like a ghost or an imposing belief on a person (e.g. hypnotism)


	15. Encounter

**Chapter 14: Encounter **

"Ellie!" Rayner shouted in surprise, "aah, about this morning, I need to explain."

Ellie crossed her arms and stopped to raise her eyebrows, her green skirt and white blouse flapping from the strong wind coming from the terraces of the building. Trailing behind him was an equally lethargic Jeeves who merely pushed the nosebridge of his glasses upwards as he looked over Rayn's companion. Celestine didn't even bother making a reaction upon seeing Ellie again - she didn't have anything against that girl after all.

"Hmm? I don't remember anything you have to explain. It's your life you lead, Rayn," Ellie replied with cadence, playing down whatever emotions she had - if any. She tugged Jeeves as she would a toy dog, "Jeeves let's go, we're going to be late for class." 

Jeeves didn't budge at once; his eyes were still fixed to Celestine, who had been noticing the attention. After a while Celestine started glaring back with resolve.

"Jeeves? Are you coming or not?" shouted Ellie who had started off along the corridor without her companion. Neither Jeeves nor Celestine did not take heed, instead they both stood motionless with their stares. 

"Are you going to stare all day?" asked Celestine, half-flushed in the cheeks but still with a very serious manner of speech, "That girl is calling you already."

Rayner couldn't even notice. At that point, all he could ever think of was how to explain things to Ellie, who from experience looked almost at her breaking point of patience.

"Rayner," Jeeves said in a flat tone without taking his eyes on the Priestess, "aren't you going to introduce your friend?" Jeeves speaking made Rayn break from his trance as if he just got out of hypnotism. Rayn stuttered for an answer, "Ah, her name is Celestine. She's uhh --"

The young man couldn't even finish his sentence before he got cut off by Celestine, "His cousin from another country. I'm here for an exchange student program. And you are?" 

"Jeremiah. Jeremiah Estives," Jeeves answered back, "a friend of both Rayner and Ellie. Just call me Jeeves. Exchange student eh? So how's your experience so far?"

COUSIN? She must be crazy! Rayn almost blushed because of what he heard. He thought about it some more, if she's willing to make up that story, maybe he can also use it to explain a fake story to Ellie. Having a cousin from the States is a lot easier to justify than a half-naked girl teleporting into an empty cafe...

"I should ask you then why you stare at me like that," replied Celestine while fingercombing her hair that had become wavy as it dried out from the sun. "I'm not accustomed to the customs of this country, but I find your stare downright impolite."

Silence grew between the two. Rayner could only watch in horror the tension building up around him. Last time the priestess got mad, he recalled, the unexplainable light came out of her hand and she fainted. Not good for anybody.

Jeeves broke out with a smile and scratched his head, "Anou, sorry. Sorry for staring. I got too distracted by your looks. I didn't mean to be impolite. You reminded me so much of somebody."

"Eh?" Celestine's eyes widened, "my looks?"

"YES!" Right then and there Jeeves dropped to his knees and joined his hands in begging, " YOU LOOK EXACTLY LIKE WHAT I HAD IN MIND! PLEASE WEAR THE COSTUME I'VE MADE FOR THE NEXT COSPLAY EVENT IN THE CAMPUS!"  
_  
Author's notes:  
A Cosplay (lit. Costume Play) is the act of dressing up and imitating a fictional character, which usually comes from cartoons (anime), comics (manga), and video games. While such an activity is widely popular in Japan, it has only recently become mainstreamly accepted here in the Philippines. For more information, you can go check cosplay.ph _


End file.
